{"id":209053,"date":"2024-02-05T09:34:01","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T14:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/?p=209053"},"modified":"2024-03-12T12:10:38","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T16:10:38","slug":"opinion-post-affirmative-action-lets-look-past-our-obsession-with-the-ivy-leagues-and-other-elite-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/2024\/02\/05\/opinion-post-affirmative-action-lets-look-past-our-obsession-with-the-ivy-leagues-and-other-elite-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Post-affirmative action, let\u2019s look past our obsession with the Ivy Leagues and other elite schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Op-Ed was published February 5, 2024 on The Hechinger Report.<\/a><\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

The U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions last June fueled heated debates and raised questions about the distribution of opportunities to attend highly selective education institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among them is: How will we ensure diverse leadership in this country if student diversity decreases at Ivy League and other top colleges?<\/span><\/p>\n

That question, while well-intentioned, is overly narrow. We should instead be asking this: Why are we so laser-focused on the graduates of a tiny number of schools, presuming they are the rightful inhabitants of leadership posts in business and government?<\/span><\/p>\n

As a professor, dean and now a college president with decades of experience at public and private schools (including the Ivy League), I\u2019ve found that the most impressive students often come from less prestigious institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

So why are we unwilling to recognize that great leaders can and do come from a wide variety of educational backgrounds? And why do we lean so heavily into a highly flawed filtering system that privileges people of means and connection?<\/span><\/p>\n

The answers are rooted in the mistaken but prevailing narrative that selectivity equals quality. We adhere to the notion that the more competitive an institution, the better it must be \u2014 and that students admitted into these coveted spots must be superior to those who are not.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is why many employers looking for the best talent narrowly focus on graduates of \u201celite\u201d institutions. Research reveals the degree to which these schools fuel the pipeline for some of the most prestigious leadership roles in America.<\/span><\/p>\n

A study<\/span><\/a> found that although just 1 percent of U.S. students attend Ivy-Plus schools (the eight Ivy League schools plus MIT, Duke, Stanford, and University of Chicago), they account for more than 13 percent of those in the top 0.1 percent of U.S. income distribution, a quarter of U.S. senators, nearly half of all Rhodes Scholars, five of the last 12 U.S. presidents and almost three-quarters of Supreme Court Justices since 1963. And \u201cAttending an Ivy-Plus college instead of a flagship public college triples students\u2019 chances of obtaining jobs at prestigious firms,\u201d the research found.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we treat those outcomes as fixed, unless these schools diversify, we won\u2019t have diverse leadership in government, business and academia.<\/span><\/p>\n

But those outcomes are not fixed. The study\u2019s authors didn\u2019t question the imbalance of opportunities perpetuated by the heavy reliance on these 12 top schools out of thousands of other fine colleges and universities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why only 12? Tweaking the composition of the student body at only 12 elite institutions was never going to fix our diversity problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Countless outstanding graduates emerge from non-Ivy institutions that embrace students from varied backgrounds and with fewer resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, these students frequently display incredible \u201cgrit\u201d and \u201cresilience,\u201d but that praise is too-often offered as a kind of offset for an assumed talent deficit. That\u2019s nonsense. Many students at more accessible institutions can run intellectual circles around their peers at \u201ctop schools.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To disregard their talent because they don\u2019t have the \u201cright\u201d degree is to leave acres and acres of human potential wasted.<\/span><\/p>\n

We need to wash away the prevailing attitude \u2014 among those making hiring decisions, graduate school admissions decisions and other evaluations of college graduates \u2014 that attendance at an elite institution is a perfect proxy for excellence. This requires reformulating ranking systems that reward institutions for being exclusionary.<\/span><\/p>\n

If everyone in a hiring position focused on individuals\u2019 attributes, abilities and achievements, it would have an enormous impact on increasing diversity in leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

And diversity is what we\u2019re looking for. Recent <\/span>polling and research<\/span><\/a> found that, when asked to evaluate how current business and political leaders are reacting to societal challenges, the vast majority of Americans somewhat or strongly agreed that \u201ceven great leaders are not suited to handle all crises\u201d and that some emerging crises faced by society today require \u201ca new crop of leaders to emerge with new skill sets.\u201d Poll respondents also overwhelmingly indicated that \u201chaving more diverse leaders would allow for better outcomes in government, business, etc.,\u201d and that \u201csociety would be better if we evolved past the \u2019traditional\u2019 leader (e.g., male, white, older, etc.).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, it was never necessary to believe that 12 schools could alter the leadership landscape for our entire country. There are many colleges and universities working hard to foster diversity simply by increasing access to high-quality education. Just by leveling the playing field, they are producing a diverse set of highly capable graduates prepared and eager to make an impact on the world, and changing lives in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of us are steadfast in our belief that accessibility and excellence must go hand in hand. Yet too often, our schools \u2014 and by extension, our students \u2014 remain in the shadow of a small but influential group of institutions built on histories of exclusion and privilege.<\/span><\/p>\n

New Jersey\u2019s second-largest higher education institution, Montclair State University, where I serve as president, is one of these overshadowed schools. Built on an ethos of inclusion and excellence, we are a minority-majority and Hispanic-Serving Institution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, <\/span>44 percent<\/span><\/a> of our incoming class were first-generation college students, while 48 percent of our undergraduates received Pell Grants. Our accessibility does not undermine our <\/span>results<\/span><\/a>. Indeed, Montclair\u2019s <\/span>graduation rates and graduates\u2019 salaries<\/span><\/a> exceed national medians. And Montclair <\/span>is far from the only university<\/span><\/a> to defy expectations based on its broader accessibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no question that Ivy-Plus schools offer a small number of people a remarkable education \u2014 including me: I was fortunate to study at Harvard, and I\u2019ve undoubtedly benefited from my association with this august institution. Those advantages have fueled my conviction that real progress requires broadening the pathways to power. To do so we must support the institutions that are cultivating new waves of talent reflective of the diversity of our country.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Op-Ed was published February 5, 2024 on The Hechinger Report. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ The U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions last June fueled heated debates and raised questions about the distribution of opportunities to attend highly selective education institutions. Among them is: How will we ensure diverse leadership in this country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":394,"featured_media":209082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-32_featured-links","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/394"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209076,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209053\/revisions\/209076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}